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Waste Reduction

At Princeton, our students, faculty, and staff take many measures to reduce the campus waste stream.

Since 2006, the Office of Sustainability has worked collaboratively with students and various departments to reduce the campus waste stream. While decreasing the amount of trash the University produces, the campus has simultaneously increased the percentage of recycling across all categories: plastics, paper, “household” items, demolition and construction debris, food scraps, and more. Opportunities for student leadership and research include investigating solutions related to behavioral and campus cultural norms, consistent deployment of recycling support across all campus activities including events, comprehensive capture of donatable materials at move-out, and comprehensive waste minimization and recycling solutions for Reunions.

Goal

Reduce overall campus waste by 40 percent between 2006 and 2020.

Progress

The total volume of cleaning chemicals purchased has decreased by 31 percent since 2010. However, this past year, the volume increased by 28 percent.

The AASHE Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) allows metric-driven progress assessment across operations and academics for North American higher education and has recognized Princeton at the Silver leadership level.

The University purchased about the same amount of paper per capita in 2014 as last year, and 167 fewer tons than 2008. Since 2009, when a student print quota was instituted, sheets printed in computer clusters and public libraries have declined by 33 percent.

More than 200 filtered Drink Local bottle filling stations have been installed since 2010, celebrating access to healthy (and free) local water, and contributing to 100,000 fewer bottled water purchases per year.

Campus waste decreased by 11 percent per capita in the past year and 34 percent per capita since 2006. The recycling rate has increased to 44 percent from 38 percent in 2006.

The University continues to track towards its commitment to recycle 95 percent of construction and demolition debris for new and renovated buildings, including construction of the Arts and Transit Project (including the Lewis Center for the Arts), and 20 Washington Road.